Jenny Sky Is The Limit

Laos holds the unfortunate title of being the most severely bombed country per capita in the world. Despite living in a world marked by conflict, I had inadvertently grown somewhat desensitised to certain harsh realities. However, this visit to the UXO Lao Visitor Centre in Luang Prabang proved to be a heart-wrenching experience.

While the exhibition was intended to be a brief 30-minute visit, I found myself engrossed for over two hours. This unexpectedly prolonged stay served as a powerful revelation, exposing the profound impact of the country’s tragic history and the ongoing struggles that persist, resulting in continued loss of life.

While I could endlessly express my sentiments about the horrors of war, corruption, and the darker facets of our world, there are already countless voices doing so. I prefer to adopt the opposite approach and strive to see the world from a more optimistic perspective. Little did I anticipate that my visit to the UXO Lao Visitor Centre would be so graphic and self-explanatory.

Here’s a sickening fact: Over 270 million bombies, stemming from cluster bombs dropped by the USA during the Vietnam War, plagued Laos for over nine years. Shockingly, 80 million of these deadly remnants failed to explode and, to this day, pose a significant and perilous hazard.

As I moved around into the photographic and written archives at the UXO Lao Visitor Centre, a staggering truth unfolded before me. In UXO (unexploded ordnance) incidents, 50,000 civilians have lost their lives, with at least 20,000 fatalities occurring since the war officially ended in 1973. The most heart-wrenching realisation is that half of these victims are children.

Witnessing countless images of children, some even younger than my own boy, being mutilated by the remnants of this horror served as a profound wake-up call, shattering my ignorance about the enduring consequences of past wars.

Attempting to convey the impact of my visit to the UXO Lao Visitor Centre is a challenging feat; one must experience it firsthand to truly grasp the magnitude. Drawing your own conclusions about the irrational intervention of the USA in this devastating war is an inevitable outcome. To shift gears and focus on the positive, though not an easy task, becomes a necessary step. It’s crucial to emphasise that this visit is undeniably gloomy-dark.

Jenny